College basketball fans have it made each March. Each March, scores of college hoops fans anxiously anticipate the tipoff to March Madness, which is a widely used nickname for the wildly popular NCAA Tournament, a single-elimination battle featuring 68 teams competing over seven rounds. Each team aspires to win the championship, but only one can walk away with the elusive trophy. That reality ups the ante with each game, and many a nail-biter and memorable moment has taken center stage during the tournament over the years.
As this year’s round of madness prepares to tip off, fans can look back at these memorable moments from tournaments past and ponder the many others that have made March such a fun, if frenzied, month.
· A scoreboard is lit up in the inaugural tournament, 1982: More than 40 years ago, few college hoops fans might have realized just how much history they were seeing as they watched the first Division I women’s championship tournament unfold. Though the inaugural status made the tournament memorable in its own right, Drake’s Lorri Bauman added to the history by scoring 50 points in the West Regional final. Though Bauman’s efforts were not enough to overcome Maryland, her prodigious offensive output remains a tournament record.
· Cheryl Miller cements her legacy, 1984: Few might object if a basketball fan declared the Miller Family American basketball royalty. Though Reggie Miller, a 2012 Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, may be more of a household name, his older sister, Cheryl, a fellow Naismith Hall of Fame member, earned glory on the hardwoods long before her younger brother. Miller led the way as USC won its second consecutive national championship in 1984, winning the NCAA Tournament Most Valuable Player award for the second year in a row.
· A summit is reached for the first time, 1987: The late Pat Summitt is a legendary figure in the game of basketball. Summit won eight NCAA Tournament championships as head coach at the University of Tennessee before retiring in 2012, and her first came in 1987. Though Summitt’s Lady Vols would establish the program as one of the most dominant men’s or women’s college basketball programs throughout her run in Knoxville, the legend had not yet been written in 1987, when Tennessee finally got the better of a Louisiana Tech team that, prior to the 1987 national title game, had won 11 of the previous 12 meetings between the schools. Summitt’s squad left no doubt among fans, as the team cruised to a 67-44 victory and, in a scenario that would unfold many more times over the ensuing decades, celebrated as national champions.
· A thrilling title game and a legendary performance crowns a new champion, 1993: A generation of basketball fans may never forget the name Sheryl Swoopes, and the Texas Tech star’s performance in the memorable 1993 national championship game undoubtedly has much to do with her enduring reputation. On the back of Swoopes’ title game record 47 points, the Red Raiders earned the school’s first national championship, defeating Ohio State 84-82 in a game many consider among the most memorable in the history of the sport.
· Brittney Griner denies entry, 2010: Blocked shots rarely garner much glory, but when they come as often as they did in one second-round affair in 2010, they make for one of the more memorable individual performances in tournament history. Legendary Baylor star Brittney Griner found herself in foul trouble in the first half of her team’s second round game against Georgetown. A noted shot blocker, the 6-foot-9 Griner blocked just one shot in that foul-plagued first half. But she more than made up for that in the second half, blocking 13 shots after halftime to shatter the previous record for blocks in a single game as the Bears held the Hoyas to just 17 percent shooting on the night.
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